Five Ways The Wrong Job Can Hurt Your Career

Dear Liz,

It took me four months to realize that I took the wrong job.

I was in denial, I guess. Now it's obvious.

This is the worst working atmosphere I have ever seen.

There is no team spirit except the desire of many of  the employees to get a better job somewhere else.

The management team promises the world and delivers nothing. They complain about the employees out loud. There is no leadership.

I learned that in my first week of work when I tried to connect my goals (given to me by my manager on my first day) with anybody else's goals, or the company's goals. They have no goals!

In four months I have not had a single one-on-one meeting with my boss "Gloria," although she has promised a dozen times to schedule one. I've stopped asking her to.

My new workplace is ruled by fear. I had heard the term "fear-based culture" before I started working here but now I see it on a daily basis.

In this company they watch your every move. As a 42-year-old professional that doesn't work for me. Gloria checks her watch whenever someone gets up to leave for lunch or go home at the end of the day.

The fear in the air is so thick it's almost palpable.

I take responsibility for my mistake coming to work here. I felt desperate to get a job. In retrospect there was no need for me to be so desperate. I'm not wealthy but I have a little money saved.

I didn't need to jump at the first job offer I got, but that's what I did.

I am just now admitting to myself that there were signs of the dysfunction during my interviews.

How long should I stay here?

Should I stay the standard one to two years to make this job look like a real assignment on  my resume and to have some accomplishments to talk about (if I can push any ideas through this broken culture, which is doubtful in itself)?

Should I cut my losses and leave asap even if I have to take a 'survival' job?

What do you recommend?

Thanks Liz -

Garrett

Dear Garrett,

You got the learning from this painful episode -- that's the key! The most painful snakebites teach us the most important lessons.

You have two options. One is to stick it out and wring as much resume fodder as possible out of your current job.

The other option is to get out fast, but that doesn't necessarily mean you have to take a 'survival' job.

You can start job-hunting right now for a 'career-type' job.

You have probably updated your LinkedIn profile by now to show your new job. That's okay.

Recruiters and employers will wonder, of course, why you're job-hunting so soon again after starting a new position, but you will answer that question in your Pain Letters by mentioning that you are in a short-term assignment now.

That is your assessment, rather than your employer's. Your resume is a branding document, and you get to frame your assignments however you like.

On a live interview or on the phone you can explain that you took your current job and soon learned that the company's strategy isn't as great a fit for your talents as you had first believed it would be.

You will explain that you took the job, looked around and said "Oh, okay -- that's not what I was expecting. Time to shift gears!" You did some things that needed to be done at the new shop and prepared to move on.

As you step into this new frame or mental model, keep in mind that when things don't work out, it's no one's fault.

You will not bash your current employer or apologize for failing to see the mismatch because these things happen.

The more confident you are in the new persona you are stepping into, the easier every conversation and job interview will be.

You can start a new, stealth job search right now.

I recommend that you do.

You are understandably freaked out and anxious about your toxic work environment, and the best cure for those feelings is to work them out through action.

I don't mean that you have to start sending out resumes this week. Go through these steps in order:

• Get a journal and start writing in it, even just one sentence if that's all you can manage sometimes. Start writing.

• Write about your ideal job and how it differs from the job you have now. What is missing? Why are those elements important to you?

• Begin to brand yourself for the jobs you want using your Human-Voiced Resume. Describe your current job as a project to solve X or Y -- whatever you thought you were being hired to fix -- that has either concluded, been taken in a different direction or been abandoned, depending on which is true when you send out each resume.

• Construct a Target Employer List for your job search.

• Begin researching employers to find your hiring manager at each of your target firms. Because

• LinkedIn has changed its programs you may have to pay for premium membership for as long as it takes you to track down the hiring managers you want to reach.

• Compose a customized Pain Letter for each of your target hiring managers. Customize your Human-Voiced Resume for each situation, as well. You don't have to read job ads unless you want to. You can simply write directly to each hiring manager, whether or not they've placed a job ad.

• Keep track of the Pain Letters you send out, using a spreadsheet app. Each Pain Letter goes in front of your one-or-two-page Human-Voiced Resume and is stapled to the resume with one staple in the upper left corner. The two stapled documents go into an envelope that you'll mail directly to your hiring manager's desk.

• Get some consulting business cards and get out to networking events. They will be good for your battered mojo!

• Watch what happens as you attention moves away from your toxic job to your future job. Obnoxious things that happen at work will bother you less and less. You'll start to get the old spring in your step again!

Why do I recommend that you bail on your new job as soon as possible rather than sticking it out for a year?

It's because the longer you stay, the longer it will take you to rebuild your mojo.

Sticking around at a job you hate just to collect resume fodder is tough duty. It can feel like a prison sentence.

The number one things that fuels your job search is your mojo level. You can't afford to let the wrong job suck away your precious mojo any longer than necessary!

Here are way ways the wrong job can hurt your career.

1. If you go to work for a company with a reputation as a badly-run firm, that reputation can dog you. When you begin job-hunting again people will wonder "Why did you work at that sub-par company?"

2. When you work among people you can't trust, you start censoring yourself and that is very hard on your brain and body. When you can't relax over the course of a whole workday, it can easily affect your sleep, exercise, diet and general well-being.

3. If the company you go to work for is way behind the times and doesn't invest in new tools and technologies, your resume will suffer. You won't have much to show for your time in the unfortunate job.

4. The wrong job can thrust you into job responsibilities you never signed up -- from appeasing a tyrannical boss to propping up a co-worker's fragile ego or keeping warring departments from ripping each other to shreds. If that kind of work is not your life's  work and  calling, then you definitely shouldn't be performing it for free and without acknowledgment!

5. Worst of all, the wrong job can make you start believing that you are a failure or a loser, and you are neither. You are amazing, brilliant and strong, but it is easy to forget that when your mojo fuel tank is nearly empty.

The hardest part of shaking yourself awake when you've fallen asleep on your career is the initial "Aha!"

Once you've had the realization that you deserve better, the action steps listed above become much easier.

You can take them slowly. There's no rush. You are employed. Remember that not everyone deserves your talents -- only the people who get you deserve you!

All the best,

Liz